In conventional drinks dispensers, the drinks are reconstituted from a liquid concentrate or powder contained in reservoirs. The liquid concentrate or the powder is metered then mixed with a diluent, generally hot or cold water, inside the dispenser, passing through pipes, pumps and mixing bowls. Mixing is generally performed by a mechanical stirrer contained within a chamber. The conventional preparation of these drinks therefore requires a great deal of maintenance and cleaning in order to keep those parts that are in contact with the food product constantly clean and avoid the risks of contamination and bacterial growth. The machines also represent a significant investment on the part of the operators. Finally, these machines lack versatility in terms of the choice of drinks delivered, even though the current trend is to extend the choice of hot, cold, frothy or non-frothy drinks.
WO-A-2006/005401 describes a device for metering a base liquid and mixing this base liquid with a diluent to prepare a food product, the device being able to be connected to a container containing the liquid, and the device comprising a liquid pump configured to meter a quantity of liquid through a liquid metering duct, a diluent inlet with a diluent duct, and a mixing chamber for mixing the liquid with the diluent, wherein: the diluent duct is positioned relatively to the liquid metering duct so that the diluent stream intersects the liquid stream before or at the mixing chamber. In a preferred configuration, the metering device is in the form of a cap which is connected to the container by appropriate connecting means, and the device has coupling means which allow coupling into a docking panel of a base station having drive means and complementary coupling means. The device of WO-A-2006/005401 provides an improved solution for metering then correctly mixing a liquid with a diluent. Through the inherent speed of the diluent and the meeting of the ducts the shearing of the fluids and the mixing of the fluids in the mixing chamber are improved.
Although the device of WO-A-2006/005401 enables a compact drinks dispensing system which is simpler to keep hygienic compared to previous systems, it requires movement of the cap device attached to the container, which can be heavy, towards the base station so that it can be manually plugged into the docking panel. Larger liquid containers can be used in a system which minimizes movement of the container.